Director Kim Ki-duk has been awarded the Venice Days Best Film Award, an independent sidebar to the 71st Venice International Film Festival, which ran from August 27 to September 6 in Venice, Italy. It was his 2014 thriller "One on One" that won the day.


Venice Days sidebar, marking its 11th year in 2014, is a film festival jointly hosted and promoted by the association of Italian cinema directors and authors. The sideline event screens a series of films of high quality from around the world.

The director has been to Venice for three consecutive years, since 2012 when his “Pieta” won the Golden Lion award at the 69th Venice Film Festival, and then the subsequent year when his “Moebius” drama was screened out of competition in the film festival's 70th year.

This year's Venice Days-winning “One on One” tells the story of a terrorist group, the Shadow, that constitutes seven civilians who hunt down seven suspects, all working for governmental or military organizations, who are behind the brutal murder of a high school girl.


“The film is about seven powerless normal citizens who fight back against the corruption and graft committed by people in power,” explained Kim during a press conference on August 27 in Venice.

“I hope audiences from around the world would feel something, something that makes them look back upon themselves, through the tragic death of the young woman which symbolizes the death of democracy, and the story of a hero who ends up dying forlornly while trying to shed light on the death.”

By Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writer
jiae5853@korea.kr